Description
From Publishers Weekly Edgar-finalist Thompson's eye-opening ninth Gaslight mystery (after 2006's Murder in Little Italy) examines the culture clash in early 20th-century New York City between Chinese and Irish immigrants, whose poverty prompted many of them to intermarry. While midwife Sarah Brandt is attending pregnant Cora Lee, a strapping Irish girl whose husband is a successful Chinese merchant, Cora's teenage half-Chinese niece, Angel, bursts into Cora's Chinatown flat and asks Cora to save her from an arranged marriage to Mr. Wong, an elderly Chinese restaurant owner. When Angel later disappears, Sarah investigates and learns the missing girl had a secret lover, a young Irishman. After Angel winds up dead in an alley, Sarah turns to her detective friend, Frank Malloy, for help. The action of this thought-provoking novel with its vivid portrait of the miseries of tenement life builds to an unexpected climax. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Victoria Thompson is also the author of 20 other historical novels. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Booklist Midwife Sarah Brandt's patient, Cora Lee, is an Irish woman with a Chinese husband. In New York at the beginning of the twentieth century, impoverished immigrants often married one another, but cultural differences led to conflict. As Sarah attends the birth of Cora's son, Cora's young, half-Chinese niece, Angel, runs into the room to ask for help. Her father has arranged her marriage to an elderly Chinese man. Angel later disappears, and Sarah helps the family investigate. When Angel turns up dead in an alley, Sarah asks her friend, Frank Malloy, a New York City police detective, for help. It seems that Angel had a secret lover, a young Irish boy. As the plot unfolds, readers will learn about the miseries of tenement life, the discrimination against Chinese and Irish immigrants, and the hardships and dangers facing young women. They will also be drawn to Sarah, a strong, caring female protagonist who is not afraid to help those in need. The unexpected climax adds to the impact of this first-class historical mystery. Bibel, Barbara --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Read more
Features & Highlights
- In Chinatown to deliver a baby, Sarah Brandt meets a group of women she might otherwise never have come across: Irish girls who, after alighting on Ellis Island alone, have married Chinese men in the same predicament. But with bigotry in New York from every side, their mixed-race children are often treated badly, by the Irish, the Chinese—even the police. When the new mother’s half-Chinese, half-Irish, 15-year-old niece goes missing, Sarah knows that alerting the constables would prove futile. So she turns to Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy—and together they begin the search themselves. And after they find her, dead in an alley, Sarah and Malloy have ample suspects—from both sides of Canal Street.
